1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image pickup apparatus using an image pickup lens and an image pickup device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various image pickup apparatuses have been heretofore proposed and developed. An image pickup apparatus performing predetermined image processing on image pickup data obtained by picking up an image to output the processed image pickup data has been also proposed.
For example, International Patent Publication No. 06/039486 and Ren.Ng, et al. “Light Field Photography with a Hand-Held Plenoptic Camera”, Stanford Tech Report CTSR 2005-02 each propose an image pickup apparatus using a technique called “Light Field Photography”. The image pickup apparatus includes an image pickup lens as a main lens, a microlens array and an image pickup device in which a plurality of pixels are two-dimensionally arranged. Moreover, a plurality of pixels are allocated to one microlens, and image pickup data obtained from the image pickup device includes the intensity distribution of light on a light-receiving plane as well as information on the traveling direction of the light. Thereby, an image processing section is allowed to reconstruct an image viewed from an arbitrary viewpoint or direction (hereinafter simply referred to as “field of view”) or an arbitrary focus (focal point).